space and time
by rainbow-dango
Summary: 'She's alive inside us.' Future fic.


_A/N: Me? Writing a Castle fic all by myself? What? Preposterous._

_Honestly, though, I never no idea how this happened. I'm blaming _Love Letters to the Dead_, which is a beautiful, wonderful, amazing book that I read over my recent school vacation. It was just - wow. Blew my expectations right out of the water (though I didn't have super high hopes when I saw that the protagonist was only fourteen years old, which, strangely enough, ended up making the story)._

_But anyway._

_The formatting of this fic is inspired by a _Fringe _fic called _In Reverse_, by elialys, which is utterly heartbreaking and beautiful and if you've watched up to 3x22 of _Fringe_ I one hundred percent suggest it! One of my absolute favorites. I'm not trying to copy her work (I had enough of that crap when people not-so-politely informed me that another _Castle_ cancer!fic existed with the same title as mine, which, I'll reiterate, I did not know), because Castle and Beckett aren't Peter and Olivia, and because the same events do not occur. Just similar formatting, because I thought it was an insanely brilliant idea._

_Okay?_

_Okay._

_Let's get on with the story!_

_Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine - except for Clare and Mia._

* * *

She's alive inside us. And there's nothing that [anyone] can do about it,

because the love we can share with her now is invulnerable

to space and time.

[ . . .]

And I know that our hearts are broken, and

that it hurts,

but that's what makes us human.

- _Fringe _(5x08 _The Human Kind_)

* * *

(September 2036)

On Moving Day, Mia wakes her parents the way she did when she was a kid - she leaps onto the bed and crashes straight into them, laughing brightly like the Castle is. When she was younger, she was this tiny hurricane of a person, loud and bouncing and running everywhere, across her bedroom as she dressed and down crowded streets and across the precinct floor. Not _much_ has changed, but her energy's now focused on other things, the myriad aspects of her teenage existence. This morning, she's Mia the adorably pesky daughter, an ancient but not-yet-worn out role.

"We're old, Mia," Castle grumbles. A pillow muffles his scratchy, sleepy voice; he's laying on his side, an arm thrown over his partner, connecting lazily to her (for the longest time, they slept tightly nestled together, because they needed that then, but don't anymore). "Too old for this."

Mia sprawls out across the covers, rests her head on Kate's stomach, knees hooked over Castle's hip. "C'mon, Dad. You know that it's my very last morning as a resident of chez Castle. Cut me some slack."

The mention of Mia's departure wakes them more effectively than the abrupt collision, and they're sitting up now, their daughter rolling to the side with a fake-pout and a "Rude."

"You all packed?" Kate asks, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her palms.

"Nah, I thought I'd do that this morning," Mia deadpans, and then rolls her eyes. "I've been packed for the past week, Ma."

Kate playfully shoves Mia with her foot.

"Are _you _packed?" the younger woman asks, quickly wrapping her tattooed arms around her mother's lower leg. Mia's appearance was - very much her own, to say the least, her pixie cut dyed a deep red, exposed ears absolutely covered with piercings. A tiny gold hoop protruded from the left side of her nose, a ring through her belly button. The tattoos were courtesy of her ex-boyfriend's older brother (she's had an extremely high pain tolerance for as long as anyone could remember; when she was nine, she was sprained her wrist pretty badly, but didn't shed a single tear).

"I am," Kate answers, and then gestures vaguely to her husband. "I don't know about this one."

"We've been married for twenty years and all I am to you is 'this one'?"

"Exactly."

She kisses him them, a small peck, and Mia groans exaggeratedly.

"You're eighteen, kiddo," Castle says after pulling back, but only slightly, hovering close to his wife. "I think you can handle seeing your parents kiss."

Mia places her hands around her throat, rolling her eyes back and sticking out her tongue, playing, but Kate's heart leaps into her mouth all the same. Even after four long years, the reaction's strong and instant and visceral.

"Go start breakfast," Castle tells her. How he can even speak is beyond Kate. "Get Eli up. We'll start on your grave."

As soon as Mia leaves - her step bouncy and easy as usual - Kate backhands Castle's chest. "Not funny. Your daughter's not funny, either."

"Her morbid side comes from you, hun." He presses a kiss to the top of her head, smiling.

"That's debatable," she counters.

His hand slips from where it rested on her arm to her cheek, pulling her into another kiss, longer and deeper, but nothing like the moments they shared as partners, as newlyweds, even as the parents they were before the teenage years, when lovemaking was improvised, an in-between activity. When they break apart, his forehead falls to hers as naturally as breathing.

"We can talk to her if you want," he murmurs. "It's not like she doesn't remember."

Kate sighs heavily. "Yeah. Let's just - try to keep today as happy as possible, okay?"

"Hmmm," he says. "Happiness on Moving Day? You might wanna lower your expectations a bit."

"Guys!" Mia shouts from downstairs. "We need to make a huge breakfast, and I can't do that by myself!"

And just like that, the conversation's over.

* * *

All three of them are leaving today. Mia's college-bound - Columbia, being as deceptively as she is - and her parents are moving to an apartment building relatively close to the school. Mia argued her right to privacy, but then Clare was brought up, and when Clare's brought up, the argument's just about over. _It's for our benefit, kiddo_, Castle reasoned. _Not yours_. When they offered free babysitting services, Mia took to the idea with much more enthusiasm.

After breakfast and after Mia showers and pulls on her favorite navy dress, which fully displays the extent of her body ink, Alexis shows up with her kids to help with the boxes. Isaac's thirteen now, all silent moodiness and scowls and irritation, while the twins, Josh and Amy, run around like the world's a pinball game, crashing into objects and other people and each other but never, ever slowing down.

"Where's Jeff?" Mia asks, running a hand through her son's hair. The two-year-old clung to her leg, eyes drooping; Eli has an old soul, sleeps longer than anyone else in the house does, quiet and observant, taking in the world with eyes that reminded his mother of a basset hound.

"Oh, my ever-devoted husband?" Sarcasm drips heavily from Alexis's voice as her daughter uses her a human shield, Josh swatting at her and whining about something or other. "He's at home, watching sports. 'This game's important, Lex, I swear.'"

The imitation of Mark's low voice makes Mia laugh. "He can't drag his ass over here for his favorite sister-in-law? Dick."

Nobody corrects her, says 'You're his only sister-in-law.' It's true, but none of them can even begin to formulate the words, can't get their tongues twist around the dialect of Clare's absence. So they just ignore it; they don't think about it; they smile.

Kate slaps the back of Mia's head, a warning, and says, "Language. Especially in front of my grandson."

Isaac and Josh and Amy are wrangled up and put to work. Mia's pausing to affectionately ruffle her younger nephew's bright hair when she spots someone familiar out of the corner of her eye. Blonde curls, tall, lean and vaguely muscled from the sports she did as a child, but doesn't anymore. 'She wanted to reinvent herself,' Clare's voice instantly rings around Mia's mind, clear as yesterday, clear as ever. 'Just like that. How amazing is that? To just stop and become something else.' She talked like that sometimes, like she lived inside poetry. Mia teased her for being pretentious, but, late at night, she finds herself missing the comfort of Clare's beautiful words.

"Sarah," the younger redhead greets guardedly. "Nice to see you."

The other girl nods stiffly as everyone's gaze flies to her. She bounces on the balls of her feet and half-smiles, clearly uncomfortable with the stares, the varying degrees of hatefulness. "Hi, Castle family."

"Baby Ryan!" Castle's reaction is too bright and too happy and a small part of Mia wants to start screaming. "Long time no see!"

"Yeah," Sarah says sheepishly. "It's been - rough, you know?"

"No, we don't," Mia says coldly. "Enlighten us, Sarah."

"Sorry," the older girl responds, sounding small and broken and everything Mia's tried not to be since what happened happened.

"Why're you here, kiddo?" Castle again. _I just see her!_ Mia wants to shout, wants to throw a tantrum like a child. _Stop! Make her leave!_

Her parents think she's uncontrollable already, but what's inside her now is truly wild, has teeth and claws that tear up her insides. In school a few years back, her biology teacher talked about diseases that adapted to evade antibiotics. Grief is like that.

"I'm here to help," Sarah tells them quietly. "I heard about the move, and I just - wanted to help you guys."

She smiles, and Mia wants right there and then to die. Okay, maybe not _die_. But to disappear, to not exist for a while, at least until Sarah Grace Ryan (everyone used to call her 'Sarah Grace,' but she went by just 'Sarah' in middle school, insisted everyone call her that instead for whatever reason) isn't anywhere near her family.

"Yeah, sure. We could an extra pair of hands."

_Dad._

_! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !_

Mia doesn't say another word to anyone.

* * *

Mia's roommate Hannah is petite and cute and has jet-black hair. She talks about Mia about pointless things and Kate has to practically wave her fingers in front of Mia's face to get her attention.

"Love you guys," Mia says without even the trace of a tear, or melancholy, or all the things one would expect on a day like this. "I'll see you later."

* * *

That night, once Hannah falls asleep listening to a playlist of manufactured pop songs _way _too loudly, Mia curls under the blankets and cries quietly into the pillow she brought from home.

* * *

'Chez Castle' is empty now, ready to be passed onto another family like a reincarnation. Kate remembers being young, thinking she was getting old, but later realized that she didn't know anything about age when she was thirty-four. She remembers the promise that came with this new home; she remembers being hugely pregnant and waddling through these halls; remembers the sharp sounds of her infant's colicky cries against the walls; remembers the soft, slow, tiny _thump - thump - thump_ when that same baby, months and months and months later, walked for the first time, took those wobbly steps toward her mother.

"Do you remember when we first saw this place?" She's drunk; they're both drunk, celebrating Clare's twenty-first, even though that three days ago and they _actually_ honored the date by not talking about it. They're laying on the floor of the hollowed out living room, both staring up at the ceiling, the stain from Mia's soda and Mentos experiment almost ten years ago.

He doesn't respond, almost like he didn't hear her, or maybe he's replaying the memory. Kate at six months pregnant, arms open, already completely enchanted by this home. Him kissing her like they were alone.

So much happened here; a life happened here. An entire life from start to finish.

"Do you think her ghost's here?" It's something she'd never, _ever_ say regularly, mourning or not.

He snorts. "Didn't you ever watch _Ghost Whisperer_, Kate? Spirits are bound to specific people, not specific places."

"So she's with us."

"And Mia."

"And Mia."

"And," he adds, yawning. "Alexis and her kids. And our grandson."

She hums, agreeing, body sinking slowly into unconsciousness. His is too, evidently, as his eyes close.

"Should we stay here?" She asks tiredly.

"Tonight or forever?"

"Just tonight. I think - time to move on, right?"

But he's snoring now and she smiles, cuddling to his side. They are old - she's almost sixty and he's almost seventy and their baby's at college, has a baby of her own. But she can pretend it's 2014 again and everything's good, everything's _perfect_, the future's endless but right there, close enough to touch, to grasp and hold close to their hearts.

She falls asleep thinking she's that Kate Beckett again. Newlywed Kate Beckett, who didn't believe in happily ever afters but thought that maybe, maybe, she was getting one.

* * *

_A/N: Hoping you guys caught the illusions to my buds. (Sorry, Ellie.1, for changing the kid's name to 'Eli.' Couldn't very well use my own name in my fic, could I?)_

_Leave a girl some love, yeah?_

_- Ellie_


End file.
